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01/29/2014

Having an interest in the nature and possibility of ‘Bioethical Expertise’ the recent blog post by Professor Klugman caught my eye. In it he summarizes a post I wrote for the Guardian’s Political Science blog with the suggestion that it “warns that one must not give greater weight to the opinion of a bioethics expert than to anyone else.” Whilst this is not an accurate representation of my views I wasn’t exactly surprised, to find it attributed to me. No doubt due to my own failings many misunderstood what I was trying to communicate. In fact, I do think that (bio)ethical expertise exists but I do not think this can justifies moral authority or ‘testimony’ in that way we would usually understand the term.…

01/27/2014

On 8 February 2014, a regional conference on “Bioethics Issus for Women: Ethics of reproductive health – Social and political conditions in Arab countries” will be organized in Beirut as the first regional activity of the Network after the establishment … Continue reading →

01/27/2014

Over the last few months the bioethics wires have been ablaze with conversations about the McMath and Munoz cases. Much of the internal (to bioethics) furor has been over the lack of understanding of death by the public and the media. A thread of debate has been whether those in bioethics reached out enough to journalists and the media to help them to be more accurate in reporting and to educate the public. Bioethics has always had a complicated relationship with the media—those in the field are often sought out for commentary on current events, and those who do are often criticized for reducing complex issues into sound bites.…

01/26/2014

I've mentioned many times the Inverse Benefit Law:http://brodyhooked.blogspot.com/2011/01/inverse-benefit-law-making-sense-of-how.html--that says that the public health effects of a drug worsen to the degree that the drug is more heavily marketed. Whil...

01/23/2014

A SONG FOR YOU is a documentary that goes down like the first draw of a good espresso, made more perfect by a bit of sweet steamed milk. Three sisters travel to the heart of their family’s greatest threats and strengths, retracing the family's escape from the Nazis. The story is an applaud for those who refused to let civilization fail. This film is the most recent collaboration between co-directors Sharon Karp and Sylvia Malagrino, veteran filmmakers whose works define resilience under the stress of humanitarian violation. A SONG FOR YOU premiered January11, 2014, at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Center.

In 1943, preschooler Susie Karp climbed the Pyrenees with her parents, to escape Nazi occupied France. The Karp family owe their lives to the kindness of strangers, particularly rural French Resistance fighters, The Maquis. The Maquis ferried the family through the final leg of the journey into Spain and ultimately to North America. The escape took five perilous years of fear and persistence.

This film differs from THE SOUND OF MUSIC and other stories of the genre reflecting such escapes from tyranny. Susie, like her parents, is a first generation holocaust survivor. Her two younger sisters, born in Chicago after the escape, are second generation survivors. There is a phenomenon of Family Culture Post Traumatic Stress, observed in circumstances of humanitarian violation. This stress often affects generations in the family who did not directly endure the primary assaults. Susie served as the bridge between her parents and her siblings. She and her parent’s primary trauma became integrated across generations, to her younger sisters. Culture is how people define themselves, The Karp Family culture was defined by the embedded fears of impending disaster, related to the perils of the escape. A SONG FOR YOU addresses the need for the sisters, after the deaths of their parents, to understand the cross generational phenomenon that punctuated their upbringing.

A SONG FOR YOU is not sad, but gripping largely because of its elegant film craft. Modern European geography is used as the backdrop for historical recollection and a vehicle for emotional engagement. Relative stability of the landscape and cultures of the European Holocaust, mirrors the resistance to the consequences of heinous atrocities perpetrated there.

All family sagas are a matter of interpretation of primary and secondary memories by the relatives. Karp Family archival films, recordings, documents and songs illustrate those memories. The survival of the supporting documentation, matches the strengths of the family whose life is depicted, A SONG FOR YOU becomes a song for us.

01/23/2014

SAVING MISTER BANKS is a fictional story about P. L. Travers, the author of the book, Mary Poppins. The Travers character works through childhood trauma, while attempting to maintain creative control over her book during its adaptation to a Disney film. Mrs. Travers is successful in the former but not the latter. Both of these key themes have bioethical if not clinical ethical implications. Mr. Banks is directed by John Lee Hancock and co-written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith. Emma Thompson plays Mrs. Travis majestically while Tom Hanks portrays Walt Disney. Mr. Banks is ultimately about honoring the good in a person while not forgetting their fallibility or even real versus perceived cruelty. The film is subtle in this expression.

The fictional Travers-Disney relationship unmasks Mrs. Travers' need for emotional transformation. The film reminds me of the sensibility of the recent movie HITCHCOCK. Both works pivot on a unique nonsexual relationship between historically revered male and female creative collaborators. Both illustrate concerns with the film industries potential corruption of original written source material. Bioethical issues relate to "the artist's right to write," and pitfalls of having other people tell your stories. MISTER BANKS also underscores ways in which creativity can be therapeutic.

This film is worth seeing for the performances. Thompson's Travis is strong in an understated way. The portrayal is aided by the actor's access to audio tapes of the real Travis' working sessions during Mary Poppins' pre-production. She definitely undergoes the only major change in the story, as others run their intended agendas around her. Hanks' Disney is a simple principled man, whether or not one agrees with the principles.

There is one person of color in the film and he is a bartender. It's a small cast, a tight story with few locations. There are characters who are peripheral to Disney; workers who are drivers, secretaries, and lyricists. Mrs. Travers, even when antagonistic, at least interacts with these workers in the film, unlike Disney. These little bits allude to Disney's political background which was in reality far to the right of the real Mrs. Travers. In the context of childhood trauma, enough shadow is cast to warrant questions about Disney's tensions with his father. His father was a known socialist. Walt abandoned his father’s values, but apparently learned his work ethic. It is the sharing of the conflict between Disney and his father which aids the Travers character's epiphany about the influence of her own upbringing.

Like Hitchcock's films, SAVING MISTER BANKS is about terror arising deep in childhood fears. It is also about the defenses people muster to escape those fears; helpful or malignant. This movie rejuvenated my desire to better understand the longtime concern and effects of Disney works dealing with psychological implications of death and loss; an arena in which these films have always been oddly involved. SAVING MISTER BANKS is absolutely not a children's film, though it is mostly about children's lingering fears in adults. Also like Hitchcock's psychological thrillers and mysteries, MISTER BANKS is a rough exploration of death's implications for those left behind.

01/23/2014

DirectorLee Daniels' The Butleris an historical fiction film. It is inspired by many men and women. It tells the story of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) and his family. Cecil is a Black man born in the Southern United States during the Jim Crow era. He becomes a member of the White House staff, serving presidents Eisenhower through Reagan. Though the media touts the films focus as dismantling institutional racism, I read the film's main theme as even more universal.

The Butlerillustrates a conflict between a man and his eldest son. The former began his life in well-founded fear while the latter with a sense of the right and obligation to struggle for dignity illustrating tensions between paternalism and autonomy. It is as common in families as in the doctor-patient relationship. The paternalism-autonomy issue is a good one to consider in terms of bioethics as it is an issue of competing goods, not simply black and white, good or bad. This is not only the story of a Black American family, but of many families where one generation is born prior and the next after, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The absence of any nominations forThe Butler, from members of two major awards organizations, was an eyebrow raising event driving me to consider if the films story, not its craft, was the reason for its exclusion from nomination.The Butler is one of four films with major theatrical releases in 2013 which tell stories of persons primarily of African descent. As a groupThe Butler, Twelve Years a Slave, Mandela: Long Walk to FreedomandFruitvale Stationhave transcended the narrow distribution genre of "ethnic film." Some members of film awards nominations committees may not have gotten 'the memo.' Of note, the Weinstein Company distributed three out of the four films. There had been hopes that the awards season would share the enthusiasm of these film's broad audiences with unprecedented nominations; as happened in 2006 when we were graced with:The Pursuit of Happiness, Dream GirlsandThe Last King of Scotland. Close, but no cigar forThe Butler, leaving me to consider why.

Was it film craft?The Butler's director, lead actors and cinematographer have been recognized previously by awards and their work as an ensemble represents some of the best expression of cinema. Visuals were classically and appropriately delivered by award winning veteran cinematographer Andrew Dunn, (Gosford Park, LA Story, the Madness of King George,) and film editor Joel Klotz (Precious). Several of the sequences represent some of the strongest film imagery in history. For instance, a montage of a White House supper party being prepared and served by an all Black wait staff including Cecil, rapidly intercut with shots of college students including Cecil's son Louis being, trained in passive resistance, facing attacked while desegregating a lunch counter. A second example, Cecil is present, standing ready to serve during a White house concert of Cellist Pablo Casals. Through lighting, Cecil's transformed into the image of a racist stereotype art form reminiscent of Jim Crow, Zip Coon or Uncle Tom. Further, the score of Rodrigo Leao catapults many of the films visuals into the range of legendary opera, reflecting the complex inner emotions of the main characters.

Lead character portrayals include the Gaines family: Cecil (Forest Whitaker), Gloria (Oprah Winfrey), Louis (David Oyelowo), Charlie (Elijah Kelley) and Carter (Cuba Gooding Jr.) These are compellingly real; as if they lived around the corner in any working class Black community in the U.S.A. The men who portrayed presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan (Robin Williams, James Marsted, John Cusack, Alan Rickman) were also exceptional. The wardrobe, makeup and set design artist supporting the film represented a tour de force moving through decades of style.

The Butler'slack of awards recognition is clearly not because of film craft. The ensemble having received past awards shouldn't matter either. We have examples of multiple awards for more dubious activities recently. Only the story is left to blame. Director Lee Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong created an eminently emotionally accessible historical fiction which transforms degradation into resilience, for the average person. It also depicts multidimensional characters, several of whom are women. Clearly, the goal of this film is to make people feel good about the struggle for human, civil and worker’s rights. It's a Peace Genre Film, much like the filmLa Mission; a story of father and son's conflict at the crossroads between the past and the future. Both films ultimately choose the more progressive route. La Missionwas not nominated for Oscars or Golden Globes either. Perhaps this was a case of bad luck being released in such a competitive field. I suspect there is more of an apolitical or political phenomenon a foot.

My most worrisome bioethical concern is that the story ofThe Butlercontradicts the vast expression of negativity and degenerate nature reflected in many recent films despite the race of the major characters. Rejection by film trend makers ofPeace Genre Films, particular when war is being waged on so many fronts, can't be a good thing. The pessimistic violent trend both reflects and fosters the pain of this period in history. It is to Mr. Daniels credit that given the resources to do whatever he chose, he chose to makeThe Butleran homage to the spirit which elevates humanity. The Butler is readily available on a variety of digital media. People will and should continue to view it.

Lee Daniels' The Butlerdoesn't deny inhuman levels of physical and emotional brutality, seen in many other films this year and last; it simply denies these realities an ultimate platform. Better to forego nominations for awards than to forego an opportunity to foster dignity.

Additonal information about films referenced in this piece are accessible online.

For more information on Peace Genre Films see on this website: 5/23/2010 post: LA MISSION: Prototype for the Peace GenreFor more information on film literacy and bioethics on this website see link to: Lighten Up - Dying on Screen: Film and Bioethics Literacy Slides